William Newman (computer Scientist)
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William Maxwell Newman (21 May 1939 – 11 June 2019) was a British
computer scientist A computer scientist is a scientist who specializes in the academic study of computer science. Computer scientists typically work on the theoretical side of computation. Although computer scientists can also focus their work and research on ...
. With others at the
Xerox Palo Alto Research Center Xerox Holdings Corporation (, ) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox was the pioneer of the photocopier market, beginning with the introduc ...
in the 1970s Newman demonstrated the advantages of the raster (
bitmap graphics upright=1, The Smiley, smiley face in the top left corner is a raster image. When enlarged, individual pixels appear as squares. Enlarging further, each pixel can be analyzed, with their colors constructed through combination of the values for ...
) display technology first deployed in the Xerox Alto personal workstation, developing interactive programs for producing illustrations and drawings. With
Bob Sproull Robert Fletcher "Bob" Sproull (born c. 1945) is an American computer scientist, who worked for Oracle Corporation where he was director of Oracle Labs in Burlington, Massachusetts. He is currently an adjunct professor at the College of Informa ...
he co-authored the first major textbook on interactive computer graphics. Newman later contributed to the field of
human–computer interaction Human–computer interaction (HCI) is the process through which people operate and engage with computer systems. Research in HCI covers the design and the use of computer technology, which focuses on the interfaces between people (users) and comp ...
, publishing several papers and a book taking an engineering approach to the design of interactive systems. He was an honorary professor at
University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...
and taught at
Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...
, Queen Mary College London,
University of California at Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 ...
, the University of Utah,
Technische Universität Darmstadt The Technische Universität Darmstadt (official English name Technical University of Darmstadt, sometimes also referred to as Darmstadt University of Technology), commonly known as TU Darmstadt, is a research university in the city of Darmsta ...
, and the
University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...
, and became an ACM SIGCHI Academy member in 2004.


Early life

Newman was born 21 May 1939 at
Comberton Comberton is a village and civil parish in South Cambridgeshire, England, just east of the Prime Meridian. History Archaeological finds, including a Neolithic polished stone axe (found to the south of the current village) and a Bronze Age ba ...
, near
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
,
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
. He was the second son of
Max Newman Maxwell Herman Alexander Newman, FRS (7 February 1897 – 22 February 1984), generally known as Max Newman, was a British mathematician and codebreaker. His work in World War II led to the construction of Colossus, the world's first operatio ...
, the distinguished mathematician and
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
codebreaker who worked at
Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and Bletchley Park estate, estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire), that became the principal centre of Allies of World War II, Allied World War II cryptography, code-breaking during the S ...
, Manchester University and Cambridge University. William's mother was Lyn Irvine, a writer linked with the
Bloomsbury Group The Bloomsbury Group was a group of associated British writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the early 20th century. Among the people involved in the group were Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster, Vanessa Bell, a ...
. For many years William was unaware of his father's important work at the Bletchley Park WWII codebreaking centre because it was protected under the
Official Secrets Act An Official Secrets Act (OSA) is legislation that provides for the protection of Classified information, state secrets and official information, mainly related to national security. However, in its unrevised form (based on the UK Official Secret ...
until at least in the mid-1970s. Nevertheless,
Alan Turing Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist. He was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer ...
was a firm family friend, as was
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein (14 March 187918 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist who is best known for developing the theory of relativity. Einstein also made important contributions to quantum mechanics. His mass–energy equivalence f ...
, and a
Monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek and ) is a market in which one person or company is the only supplier of a particular good or service. A monopoly is characterized by a lack of economic Competition (economics), competition to produce ...
board devised by William with Turing in 1950 was retrieved in 2011 following a visit to his family home with his son, daughter and future daughter-in-law, and later repackaged and sold by
Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and Bletchley Park estate, estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire), that became the principal centre of Allies of World War II, Allied World War II cryptography, code-breaking during the S ...
. In later life he took a keen interest in his father's role there, contributing items to the Bletchley Park Museum and elsewhere. He also invested similar energy into his mother's creative output, collating and publishing letters between his mother and Lady Esher; these letters are available to view at St John's College, Cambridge, although she was an alumna of Girton College. Growing up, the Newmans were very close family friends with the Penrose family, including
Roger Penrose Sir Roger Penrose (born 8 August 1931) is an English mathematician, mathematical physicist, Philosophy of science, philosopher of science and Nobel Prize in Physics, Nobel Laureate in Physics. He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics i ...
and
Lionel Penrose Lionel Sharples Penrose, FRS (11 June 1898 – 12 May 1972) was an English psychiatrist, medical geneticist, paediatrician, mathematician and chess theorist, who carried out pioneering work on the genetics Genetics is the study of ...
; following his mother's death from cancer in 1973, his father married Margaret Penrose, Lionel Penrose's widow. As his mother Lyn Irvine was raised in
Aberdeen Aberdeen ( ; ; ) is a port city in North East Scotland, and is the List of towns and cities in Scotland by population, third most populous Cities of Scotland, Scottish city. Historically, Aberdeen was within the historic county of Aberdeensh ...
with family across the Scottish Borders, William spent much time in the Highlands and particularly in
Torridon Torridon () is a small village in the Northwest Highlands of Scotland. The name is also applied to the area surrounding the village, particularly the Torridon Hills, mountains to the north of Glen Torridon. The village lies on the shore of Loch ...
and
Applecross Applecross ( , 'The Sanctuary', historically anglicized as 'Combrich') is a peninsula in Wester Ross, in the Scottish Highlands. It is bounded by Loch Kishorn to the south, Loch Torridon to the north, and Glen Shieldaig to the east. On its wes ...
.


Education

He attended
Manchester Grammar School The Manchester Grammar School (MGS) is a highly Selective school, selective Private_schools_in_the_United_Kingdom, private day school for boys aged 7-18 in Manchester, England, which was founded in 1515 by Hugh Oldham (then Bishop of Exeter). ...
before studying Architecture and Engineering at St. John's College, Cambridge, obtaining a BA with first-class honours in 1961. His first contact with computers came in the mid-1960s when he joined others developing early
CAD Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...
applications on the
PDP-7 The PDP-7 is an 18-bit computing, 18-bit minicomputer produced by Digital Equipment Corporation as part of the Programmed Data Processor, PDP series. Introduced in 1964, shipped since 1965, it was the first to use their Flip-Chip module, Flip- ...
computer installed at the Cambridge Computer Laboratory. This PDP-7 was one of the first computers in the United Kingdom equipped with a vector-graphics display.


Research and career

Newman completed a PhD in
Computer Graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images and art with the aid of computers. Computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, digital art, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. ...
at
Imperial College London Imperial College London, also known as Imperial, is a Public university, public research university in London, England. Its history began with Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, who envisioned a Al ...
in 1968 under the supervision of Professor Bill Elliott. For his PhD project he produced the Reaction Handler, a system for organising the elements of a graphical user interface that is often referred to as the first
user interface management system A User Interface Management System (UIMS) is a mechanism for cleanly separating process or business logic from Graphical user interface (GUI) code in a computer program. UIMS are designed to support N-tier architectures by strictly defining and ...
(UIMS). He then joined
Ivan Sutherland Ivan Edward Sutherland (born May 16, 1938) is an American computer scientist and Internet pioneer, widely regarded as a pioneer of computer graphics. His early work in computer graphics as well as his teaching with David C. Evans in that subje ...
's research team developing software for interactive computer graphics systems, first at
Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...
and then the
University of Utah The University of Utah (the U, U of U, or simply Utah) is a public university, public research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. It was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret (Book of Mormon), Deseret by the General A ...
. He then held teaching and research positions at Queen Mary College London,
University of California at Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a public land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, UCI offers 87 undergraduate degrees and 129 ...
and the University of Utah. Between 1973 and 1979, Newman worked at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (
Xerox PARC Future Concepts division (formerly Palo Alto Research Center, PARC and Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. It was founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, as a div ...
) where he was involved in the development of several of the software components for the
Alto The musical term alto, meaning "high" in Italian (Latin: '' altus''), historically refers to the contrapuntal part higher than the tenor and its associated vocal range. In four-part voice leading alto is the second-highest part, sung in ch ...
,
Xerox Xerox Holdings Corporation (, ) is an American corporation that sells print and electronic document, digital document products and services in more than 160 countries. Xerox was the pioneer of the photocopier market, beginning with the introduc ...
's pioneering personal computer. He independently develope
Markup
(1975), an early interactive drawing (paint) program. With
Bob Sproull Robert Fletcher "Bob" Sproull (born c. 1945) is an American computer scientist, who worked for Oracle Corporation where he was director of Oracle Labs in Burlington, Massachusetts. He is currently an adjunct professor at the College of Informa ...
he develope
Press
a
page description language In digital printing, a page description language (PDL) is a computer language that describes the appearance of a printed page in a higher level than an actual output bitmap (or generally raster graphics). An overlapping term is printer control ...
for printers that was a precursor to
PostScript PostScript (PS) is a page description language and dynamically typed, stack-based programming language. It is most commonly used in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm, but as a Turing complete programming language, it c ...
; and with Timothy Mott he developed Officetalk Zero, a prototype office system. All of them saw use in early versions of the Alto system. Markup included what was almost certainly the first instance of the use of pop-up menus. (Further details on Markup and Press can be found in the Alto User's Handbook). In 1973, Newman and
Bob Sproull Robert Fletcher "Bob" Sproull (born c. 1945) is an American computer scientist, who worked for Oracle Corporation where he was director of Oracle Labs in Burlington, Massachusetts. He is currently an adjunct professor at the College of Informa ...
published ''Principles of Interactive Computer Graphics''; a second edition was published in 1979. This was the first comprehensive textbook on computer graphics and was regarded as the graphics "bible" until it was succeeded by Foley and van Dam's '' Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice''. Newman went on to manage a research team at the Xerox Research Centre Europe, Cambridge, UK. With Margery Eldridge and Mik Lamming he pursued a research project i
Activity-Based Information Retrieval’ (AIR).
The basic hypothesis of the project was that if contextual data about human activities can be automatically captured and later presented as recognisable descriptions of past episodes, then human memory of those past episodes can be improved. With his wife Karmen Guevara, he founded a company in 1986, Beta Chi Design, which was instrumental in introducing human-computer interaction and user-centred design practice to the UK, through workshops held across the UK, drawing on expertise gained while working with
Xerox PARC Future Concepts division (formerly Palo Alto Research Center, PARC and Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. It was founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, as a div ...
. Newman subsequently undertook research in
human–computer interaction Human–computer interaction (HCI) is the process through which people operate and engage with computer systems. Research in HCI covers the design and the use of computer technology, which focuses on the interfaces between people (users) and comp ...
with the aim of identifying measurable parameters that characterise the quality of interaction. He developed an approach based on Critical Parameters for designing interactive systems that deliver tangible performance improvements to the user. In 1995 he published the textbook ''Interactive System Design'' with Mik Lamming incorporating those ideas. After leaving Xerox, Newman worked as a consultant, advising a number of organisations on interactive systems design. He was also an honorary professor at
University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...
, lecturing at its Interaction Centre (UCLIC), at Cambridge University and at the
Technische Universität Darmstadt The Technische Universität Darmstadt (official English name Technical University of Darmstadt, sometimes also referred to as Darmstadt University of Technology), commonly known as TU Darmstadt, is a research university in the city of Darmsta ...
.


Personal life

While lecturing in Computer Science at
University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, U ...
, Newman met and married Karmen Guevara; they had two children, Damien Newman (1972) and Chantal Guevara (1975). The marriage ended in divorce. He subsequently married Anikó Anghi. In 2009, William suffered from an arrythmic attack, triggering vascular dementia. He spent his later years in a care home on the outskirts of Cambridge.


References


External links


CHM Live │Yesterday's Computer of Tomorrow: The Xerox AltoBob Sproull demonstrating William's Markup program
Retrieved 22 July 2019. *Larry Tesler, "A Personal History of Modeless Text Editing and Cut/Copy-Past"
ACM Interactions, July 2012, vol. 19, no. 4, p70.
Refers to the influence of the pop-up action icons that Newman used in Markup on the evolution of the right-click contextual menus that are commonplace today. * Vimeo , William Newman: Computer Aided Illustration
William Newman demonstrates Markup graphics software on a Xerox Alto computer at PARC in 1976
Retrieved 29 August 2019. * The Guardian
William Newman obituary, 27 August 2019
Retrieved 29 August 2019. {{DEFAULTSORT:Newman, William 1939 births 2019 deaths People from Comberton People educated at Manchester Grammar School Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Alumni of Imperial College London English emigrants to the United States British expatriates in the United States Xerox people Harvard University staff University of California, Irvine faculty University of Utah faculty Academics of Queen Mary University of London Academics of University College London English computer scientists Computer graphics researchers